ASA 129th Meeting - Washington, DC - 1995 May 30 .. Jun 06

1aSC10. The effects of feedback in auditory looming tasks.

A. Paige Wuestefeld

Lawrence D. Rosenblum

Dept. of Psych., Univ. of California, Riverside, CA, 92521

Previous research [Rosenblum et al., Perception 22, 1467--1482 (1993)]
demonstrates that listeners are able to make somewhat accurate anticipatory
judgments regarding the time to arrival of a looming sound source and that
performance feedback significantly improves these judgments. The present
research examines the effects on performance of providing feedback to listeners
and subsequently withdrawing it. Some visual research involving the
extrapolation of movement suggests that, upon withdrawing feedback, performance
will revert back to its original level. Subjects made judgments about the time
to arrival of an approaching car based on various portions of the event. Each
subject participated in three experimental sessions on consecutive days.
Subjects were divided into three groups which received differing feedback
schedules. For all groups, the first session contained no performance feedback.
The withdrawal group received feedback during the second session, but not the
third. One control group received no feedback for the remainder of the
experiment. A second group control group received feedback for both the second
and third sessions. When feedback was withdrawn, performance between the second
and third sessions did not differ significantly. Thus, unlike the previous
visual effects, performance did not revert back to its original level.